I'm interested in getting a handle on the wider picture of poor patent practice in the courts and beyond this case, so I spoke to Pamela Jones, Groklaw's founder, by email. Her views are detailed and precise so be patient with this.

1. Groklaw has taken quite a big interest in the Apple vs Samsung case but this is hardware/design not a FOSS issue surely. Why the level of interest?

To tell you the truth, I didn't take an interest right away. But stop and think about why Google decided to do Android. It was, they said, to make sure one or two players couldn't monopolize the smartphone market. They were foresighted enough to see that danger. So they built Android, which is built on the Linux kernel, with the specific goal of providing a more open alternative. Of course Groklaw would care about that.

The attacks both Apple and Microsoft (with Nokia and MOSAID - a patent licensing company) are making on Android convince me that Google indeed interfered with that very plan or hope of a monopoly or duopoly, and they are using a monopolist-friendly tool, patents, to try to kill off or seriously hobble Android (the hobbling is associated with getting royalties from Android).

I came to the working theory that this is a coordinated strategy when I looked at the arguments in the FRAND lawsuits where both Microsoft and Apple separately followed the same M.O. And if you look at the smartphone wars, Android is the chief victim. I don't think that can be a coincidence, personally.

Anything can be an antitrust violation, after all. There is no list of exclusive acts that count. It's fact based, and so I got interested in trying to discern if this qualified. I hope that someday either the DOJ or other regulatory bodies here or in Europe will notice and care .

But when the Samsung story was going on, I was busy covering the Oracle v. Google trial, so at first I just couldn't cover the Samsung tentacle of this larger story, but I read media coverage out of the corner of my eye. And it was pretty consistently against Samsung and very rah rah about Apple. So we sent

volunteers to cover the end of the trial to try to figure out why

I also started to be more aware of a smear campaign against Google, instigated, I came to believe, by Microsoft and implemented by its running dogs too not only in the media but also to regulatory bodies, with some success, not only about search but about the new theory of FRAND patents.

Putting all those pieces together, seeing a pattern in the attacks on Android, I was dumbstruck when the jury verdict came in. Of course,to be fair, I already viewed software patents as a serious problem, not to mention the way the US patent system works, tilting too far, in my view, against defendants. Plus I don't believe algorithms are patentable subject matter, being mathematics. So here was this huge verdict based on patents I don't believe should ever have issued. http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=Patents2.

In the software space, everyone is infringing someone's patents, because the USPTO got drunk on software patents and issued them expansively if the claims just said "on a computer", and now we get to live the ridiculous and toxic results. Part of that problem is what Samsung is dealing with. As you know, the utility patents Apple used against Samsung are very possibly going to be ultimately ruled invalid. Not that the jury noticed. So this is an opportunity for Groklaw to shine a light on how the patent system works, and my hope is that the public or a court someday will throw up at hat they are watching and insist on changes.

I saw immediately that there were problems with the verdict -- I mean, their math was off for one thing -- and that it was not fair to Samsung. They used the wrong standard when evaluating prior art, for example. I wrote that day that the verdict was farce and could not stand.

The media at large seemed not to notice or to care that Samsung was not getting a fair shake and they certainly weren't writing about the bigger picture much if at all, so I figured they must not understand. And that's what Groklaw is for, to show what is going on in a case, to explain it so people who are not part of the legal universe can understand what the issues are and how the legal system works. I was pretty sure that the media and the public would care if they more fully understood. Even if not, I wanted to make a record for historians. Groklaw is in the Library of Congress's digital collection, so it's worthwhile to cover things that

matter even if no one cares in this generation.

And as it happened, the jury foreman kept talking and talking to the press, and everything he said was so, so wrong, according to what the jury instructions had been or even according to the law, as far as I was concerned, so I just made a public record of every detail.

And by then I was just totally hooked. You have to admit, we're privileged to see such high-level lawyering, on both sides, actually, and I find it exhilarating.

One thing I want to stress: I never choose cases to follow based on who I like or don't like. It's always about the issues, the legal issues, and how the outcomes of the litigation could impact FOSS, not the companies.

2. It looks also to be engaging your followers quite considerably too - would you agree?

Oh, absolutely, yes, Groklaw's readers are engaged. I don't have followers. Groklaw is a group work. You don't see the back-room workings, except when we do prior art searching, but I couldn't do Groklaw by myself. Thousands and thousands of people all over the world feed me information and tips and explanation about the technology and go to cover trials, and I just put it all together into articles.

3. My take on the case right now is that Apple's position is much weaker than when it was awarded a billion in San Jose. What is your take?

Yes, but qualified in the sense that to me their position was much weaker than most people understood on the day of the verdict, and I always expected the damages to at least be reduced. Nothing that is happening since surprises me at all.

4. What do you think have been the pivotal moments over the past four months or so?

Certainly the jury foreman gave the public a peek at how peculiar this verdict was, and everyone who really understood the tech realized it.